Dan Lyons admits he's at least as fallible as (Fake) Steve Jobs

Dan Lyons has admitted that he's not perfect. But we already knew that. What I like most in his mea culpa is the humanity of it. It's hard to be a journalist. It's easier to be a blogger, because the stakes are lower. But to be a journalist for Forbes, the cost of getting something wrong is relatively high.

Dan took an aggressive line on SCO, originally in its favor and often against those who thought it had a specious case. At times he was wrong, as he says:

Others in that highly partisan crowd have suggested that I wanted SCO to win, and even that I was paid off by SCO or Microsoft. Of course that's not true. I've told these folks it's not true. Hasn't stopped them.

The truth, as is often the case, is far less exciting than the conspiracy theorists would like to believe. It is simply this: I got it wrong. The nerds got it right.

It's unfortunate that this has to be news. Dan is a talented journalist who writes interesting articles. Even though I may disagree with him at times, I appreciate the fact that he isn't drunk on the open-source Kool-Aid. It's nice to have his perspective as part of the community's voice. Today he admitted that he was wrong on SCO. Great. He's been right on many other things. Time to move on.